Amanda Gray

Doctoral Student

Contact

Courses

AMS 315 • Latina/O Med/Pop Cul 1950-Pres

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to various representations and (re)presentations of Latin@s within U.S. media and popular culture. We will pay special attention to Latin@ identity formation and its many productions and social constructions. Students will gain an understanding of the importance of identity in terms of how we view ourselves, others, and the world around us. Utilizing interdisciplinary methodologies and learned analytical skills to conduct textual readings of various media, we will look at a number of issues pertaining to Latin@ representation within the mainstream and dominant culture, as well as some subversive techniques Latin@s use in producing their own identity re-presentations. Examining multiple sites of popular culture, we will attempt to reconstruct and deconstruct different materials including books, cartoons, films, magazines, mass media, music, popular images, television shows, and other artifacts of popular culture to understand their significance in the representations of Latin@s in U.S. society, as well as formations of individual and collective identities. Throughout the course of the semester, the following themes will regularly emerge during class lectures, discussions, readings, and film screenings: ideologies and representations of race in mainstream and popular culture, issues of race, interracial relations, mestizaje and mixed-race within U.S. borders; issues and representations of gender and sexuality; issues of class and the labor force; immigration, nationalism, borders and borderlands, borderland violence: violence against brown bodies, brown bodies committing violence; representations and perpetuation of stereotypes and discrimination; the commodification of Latinidad and consumer culture; and much more.

AMS 315 • Latina/O Med/Pop Cul 1950-Pres

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to various representation and re-presentations of Latina/os within U.S. popular culture and the formation of identity and its many productions and social constructions. Throughout the course of the semester, students will gain an understanding of the importance of identity in terms of how we view ourselves, others, and the world around us. We will conduct a thorough analysis of various topics across many different forms of media. Utilizing learned analytical skills to conduct contextual readings of these media using methodology from an interdisciplinary approach grounded in American Studies, we will look at a number of issues pertaining to Latina/o representation within the mainstream and dominant culture, as well as address the importance of "the popular" and its purpose in understanding individual/collective identity formations. Examining multiple sites of popular culture, we will atempt to reconstruct and deconstruct different materials including books, cartoons, films, magazine, mass media, music, popular images, television shows, and other artifacts of popular culture to understand their significance in the representation of Latinas/os in U.S. society.